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It’s always wise to seek the truth in our opponents’ error, and the error in our own truth.

Reinhold Niebuhr

We have previously suggested that philanthropy combines genuine pity with the display of power and that the latter element explains why the powerful are more inclined to be generous than to grant social justice.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Element Justice Powerful
It is significant that it is as difficult to get charity out of piety as to get reasonableness out of rationalism.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Charity Difficult Significant
A dogma which was intended to guarantee the economic freedom of the individual became the “ideology” of vast corporate structures of a later period of capitalism, used by them, and still used, to prevent a proper political control of their power.
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Capitalism Dogma Economic Freedom Guarantee
The more complex the world situation becomes, the more scientific and rational analysis you have to have, the less you can do with simple good will and sentiment.
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Analysis Simple World
The significance of the law of love is precisely that it is not just another law, but a law which transcends all law.
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Law Love Significance
The history of mankind is a perennial tragedy; for the highest ideals which the individual may project are ideals which he can never realize in social and collective terms.
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May Realizing Tragedy
It is the evil in man that makes democracy necessary, and man’s belief in justice that makes democracy possible.
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Evil Justice Men
Self-righteousness is the inevitable fruit of simple moral judgments.
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Fruit Self Simple
A republic properly understood is a sovereignty of justice, in contradistinction to a sovereignty of will.
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Democracy Justice Republic
Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values.
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Confusion Political Relative Value
To be religious is not to feel, but to be.
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Feels Religious
All known existence points beyond itself.
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Existence Known Points
Politics deals with a common-sense approach to the imponderables of history, that I think are obscured by a certain kind of rationalism.
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Common Kind Sense Thinking
In the Old Testament, the God of the Prophets never was completely on Israel’s side. There was a primitive national religion, but it was always a transcendent God who had judgment first in the House of God.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Country House Majesty People
Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves and who do not probe deeply.
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Done Evil Good People
Freedom is necessary for two reasons. It’s necessary for the individual, because the individual, no matter how good the society is, every individual has hopes, fears, ambitions, creative urges, that transcend the purposes of his society.
REINHOLD NIEBUHR

Ambition Art Society Two

It’s always wise to seek the truth in our opponents’ error, and the error in our own truth.

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It’s always wise to seek the truth in our opponents’ error, and the error in our own truth.

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